Google AdWords: Tips for International Targeting

As we all know, Google AdWords is a great channel to increase your online presence. However, if you are solely operating within New Zealand, with a modest population of around 4 million, there can be a limit to how many people you can successfully reach. If your offering has no geographic boundaries, with the help of Google AdWords, increasing your online revenue stream by expanding into international markets can be fairly straight forward.

Here are some essential tips to help you on your way.

Create separate campaigns for each country.

When setting up your Google AdWords, creating separate campaigns for each country is essential for managing your keywords and ads in each language and optimising these to be as targeted as possible. Creating separate campaigns will also let you track how much return on investment you are receiving within each country and allow you to gain insights into each markets trends.

Localise your keywords and ad copy.

Make your keywords and ad copy as relevant as possible to the searchers you are intending to target. Identifying and utilising local slang and language commonalities will increase the likelihood of getting your ads in front of the right audience and increasing your chances of them clicking through to your website or landing page. For example, if you are selling football boots in New Zealand and are wanting to expand into the US, understanding that in this country, football is usually referred to as ‘American Football’ will save you a lot of annoyed visitors and wasted click-spend.

Ensure your website is internationally up to scratch.

One of the most important aspects of expanding your reach into international markets is to make sure your website is suited to the range of international traffic you are likely to bring in. Geo-targeting your website or landing page based on the user’s IP address is essential in making sure your visitors don’t feel like they are on an ‘alien’ website. To make the visitor feel more at home, ensure content is unique and relevant to their country and culture, and that there are a variety of language options to choose from when browsing.

The checkout process also needs to be internationally friendly to ensure that there are no barriers and drop-offs along the way. Pricing of your products need to be shown in your visitor’s currency and all additional taxes or fees need to be included to ensure there are no surprises down the track. Trusted payment options such as PayPal and providing an international shipping service is recommended. This will reassure visitors that their financial details are protected and that their order will arrive to them safely.

If you want to expand into international markets, make sure your advertising is suited towards generating international traffic and at the same time make sure your website can convert them once there. Hopefully the above tips are enough to get you started, however if you are eager to learn more contact your professional digital marketing agency.